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Roam: Chapter 03
Chapter 3 Characters * Hessal Varagy, C. * Young Sural Pavinny Ops, S. * Ambassador Onem Starling * Scruval Qualens, C. * (Inachiron) Locations * Candoam Theatre * (Fuscry) Contents Hessal Varagy The winds ripple through the top of the green grasses that follow the undulating clifftops which dictate the horizon, but the boy – even in his simple tunic and sandals – doesn’t find it cold as he absent-mindedly picks his way through the animal tracks that run through them. He hums to himself, perhaps songs he has head from his mother or the elders of his village, perhaps just the unfiltered tunes of his mind. His eyes are fixed downwards at his feet. He stops, for no reason evident but to him. He looks around for anyone that he might have missed as he trundled along in his own world, for anything at all. Slowly, still glancing around to be sure, he crouches down as only a young boy can and reaches into the grass for something that has transfixed him. It is heavier than he had expected, and he shuffles forward, his knees as high as his chest, to reach for it with his second hand. He glances around again, seemingly sure that he is about to be ambushed by adults telling him off, but he is still quite alone. Whatever it is, he now has it in both hands, and is turning it around slowly, inspecting it wide-eyed from every angle. With a burst of excitement and abandon, he stands up straight, holding a golden crown inlaid with scintillating jewels which seem to find more light than the single sun, away over the sea, can provide. He turns it round hand over hand, following the unfamiliar figures of men, mountains and horses that are engraved and embossed into the heavy metal. When he reaches the beginning, he seems unsure of how to proceed with this impossible discovery. He holds it up towards the sun with straight arms, realising that despite his meagre years that grown-ups are not the greatest concern of those with crowns. When no response but the wind comes after a patient several seconds, his elbows begin to bend, drawing the crown back towards his own, though any observer could have seen that its span far exceeded that of his dark curls. His movement is interrupted by the whickering of a horse, away towards the cliff edge. The boy freezes, the shadow of the crown across his bronze forehead. After a long second, he lowers the crown to his front, then around behind his back. He begins to pick his way forward again towards the cliffs, his carefree demeanour gone entirely, supplanted by hesitation and coiled tension as he sweeps low to the ground. His knuckles are white on his crown. An old man is sat on the very edge of the cliff, his wispy white hair carried away from his head by the warm winds rushing up the chalk edifice beneath him. He wears glowing golden armour matching that of the boy’s treasure over a white tunic, stained and sooted. His eyes are fixed on the blue-green sea hundreds of feet below, stretching out to the second, flat horizon beyond the cliffs. Nearby stands a white horse dappled with grey, clad in barding which matches its owner’s armour and the boy’s crown that must have cost more than everything that the boy had ever seen in his life combined. The horse seems of a mood with its owner, uninterested in the sea of grass but in the reflection of the dipping sun over the water. The boy runs the crown around in his hands behind his back at the edge of the grass, unseen and unheard, weighing up his options. “History,” says the old man into the breeze, so softly that the boy isn’t sure whether he had imagined it and he should unstiffen. But after a moment or two, the old man continues: “History began with gods, men and world-beasts. The first men who mounted world-beasts thought that they were gods, and called themselves kings over the kings of the world. There is not a man who stood atop a virgin beast, pristine in its forests and streams, and did not hew himself a crown. There is not a man with a crown who has not killed to keep it, or to assert ownership of the indifferent behemoth whose trees he fells and whose waters he sullies.” The old man reaches up to the ties on his shoulders, fiddling at them with imprecise fingers. The boy looks between the man and the horse, unsure who is the intended audience for this history lesson. “Was there a golden age?” asks the man. “Did man and world-beast once understand each other? Did they walk this world in concert, or march to war having sought each other’s counsel? Were those the true kings, worthy of their crowns, who communed with beast as well as god?” The boy tenses, ducking further at the second mention of a crown. “I look in my horse Agron’s eyes and I feel that our understandings overlap – that he is not a slave to my whip but a partner in my manoeuvres, a heart that quickens with mine and a soul that mourns when we are defeated. Did Kashtaran feel this way when he tamed Aleder? Did world-beasts have an eye, then, that kings, or bearded god-kings, or that Sun-Prince surely more god than man could look into, and know? Were Kashtaran and Aleder in perfect communion when they made the decision to step off the edge of this world?” His questions are carried away, all, across the grasses, their ruffling no more than a shrug. “Across this darkening sea is the land of my ancestors,” says the old man. One of his shoulders is now free of the weight of his armour, which hangs diagonally off his body. His fingers fumble at the other shoulder. “The kings there conspired to desecrate their beasts rather than allow them to exist independently of them as they sailed away, doomed, for a generation of senseless war in the shadow of Achaegon. The most enlightened men to have ever lived turned their natural philosophies to drilling and hacking away into the defenceless core of their most intimate and sacred homes at the behest of those kings, replacing nature with their infernal machines, cogs and acrid smoke. Their beasts are like the beetle which moves only because of the hands which have cut their way through his carapace and now chew away at the innards, their frenzied movements puppeting their stricken host. “Did the gods turn away then? Did the eyes of all world-beasts close in disgust at the sacrilege of men? Perhaps, though the Sun-Prince avenged their folly centuries later. Maybe that is why he could not stay on this plane; the last king, absolving all Issycrians of their irredeemable error, freeing the east at the cost of his own mortality. The last worthy crown.” The old man turns to look directly at the boy, who freezes, his legs caught between springing away and approaching the stranger. The other shoulder on the man’s armour comes loose under his ministrations, and the chest piece falls forward away from him, tumbling over the cliff unseen into the Issycrian Sound below. The old man doesn’t look away from the boy. “I have no use for that crown, boy,” he says with a wistful smile. “Nor for this armour, heavy and ornamental. Keep it. Sell it. Hide it in a sack for fifty years and show it to your grandchildren. I care not at all. May it serve you better than it ever served me. But if you put it on, when your head grows large enough to fit it, know the true weight of it. Not in gold, or responsibility, but in aspiration. It is a weight that seems to lift your head, making you look to the horizon with invasive thoughts.” The old man looks back to where the sun is: now beneath them, flirting with the sea at the edge of the world. “I thought that I could be a king. Men placed this crown atop my head and told me that I was great. They told me that I was of a bloodline with the gods, and that though the golden age was gone it lived on in me. Inachiron, the seventh Inachiron, of Inachria, a land named for me and my ancestral kings, who ruled from Inachiron-Beast, the greatest of the beasts of the Issycrian world, unmolested and unadulterated. I believed them. I believed myself. I felt that the ridges of that crown allowed my will to resonate through the dales of Inachria, and to understand the will of the gods who still protected it. But that crown was all I was hearing.” “The world had changed,” he sighs. The boy steps forward, bringing the crown out from behind his back, keeping his distance from the horse, which eyed his approach warily. “You will see how it changes, too. You spend your whole life trying to change it, then when you surrender you look around and realise that everything is different, but nobody had managed to change a single thing. Those who make their peace earlier seem to be the happier, but those who wear crowns never stop thinking that the world is theirs to change. The neighbours to my north had doubled their territory and doubled it again inside a century. I didn’t think I could afford to wait. I didn’t trust my world-beast to know itself, or the gods to shelter us. Like those kings across the sea, I broke the world.” He pulled a small pouch from the cinch of his tunic and tossed it to the feet of the boy. The boy regarded it suspiciously. “The most enlightened men told me how I could use this to burn world-wells. This dull stone, baked in the Crylaltian sun, would ignite the poison lakes that are the only thing that world-beasts seem to care for. And it did. And for a short time, I could control the world-beasts, both mine and theirs. Not through common cause, however. Not through understanding. Through privation. Through cruelty, though I could not see it. Only when our cities failed, when our beasts stumbled did I realise their desperation. But I did not stop. How could I? I was a king.” The sun was half under the waves. The boy shivered, no longer immune to the winds. “I burned all of my wells. My beast’s wells. I drove it from its home to be defeated, with none of the solemn dignity it had mustered over the centuries before that crown was laid upon my brow. Its citizens choke on the flames of their homes, or on the chains around their necks. I abandoned them; I still had a crown, and an army that had still not choked on defeat. And now they are scattered across these strange, cold lands, or dead in its fields, their souls never able to return home to be reunited with their ancestors. All I have left as I sit here at the end is my poor, loyal horse, who does not yet know his doom.” The boy looks at the crown now without the initial excitement that had accompanied its discovery. Perhaps it feels even heavier than it had when he had first found it? “Do you hear the hooves? That doom approaches at a gallop. The crown is yours, boy. For once, after everything, I shall not try to shape my fate as it would want me to.” The old man unbuckles his scabbard, running his eyes for a moment over the carvings in the leather. He doesn’t unsheathe the sword, but lets it drop unseen off the cliff before him. “Your head may grow to fit it,” he fixed the boys eyes with his own, “but that crown will never grow to fit the heads of the gods, or the world-beasts. They have their plans, and men live well when they live in respect of those plans. The hooves, can you hear? They draw nearer!” The old man places his hands beside him, straining to life himself to his feet. The boy hesitates for a second, before placing the crown down on the ground and approaching to assist him. With much wobbling and laboured breathing Inachiron stands, placing his arm on the neck of his horse for support, turning his back on the last glimpse of the setting sun, his long white hair spurred by the wind. “They do not have kings, these men who draw near.” His voice is compromised by the decision to speak rather than breathe. “They set aside their crowns long ago, and now their beast strides over the greatest territory in all of history. And they will not capture a king now: I have neither kingdom nor crown, nor desire for either. But you should run, boy. They won’t let you keep it.” He tiredly waves his hand at the crown on the sward by the cliff edge. “Just remember my words.” The boy stands over the crown, unsure if he can lift it again. He turns around to the defeated king, the sound of hooves now audible to his untrained ear. “What will you do now?” he asks the man, his voice as portentous as his years might allow. “I,” Inachiron says, smiling with a surety and a calmness emanating from deep within himself, “will trust to the gods.” The boy looks between the king and crown, the hooves ever louder. Inachiron shows no disappointment as he lifts the crown from the ground and, with one last look at the doomed stranger and his doomed horse, runs away into the grass whence he came. Young Sural Pavinny Ops Sural applauded politely, looking around the Theatre of Candoam to gauge the reactions of the other spectators of the premiere. There were some who would applaud anything, and of course were; there were some who were applauding to be seen applauding, and of course were; and there were some who couldn’t bring themselves to show much enthusiasm for this third-rate Issycrian guff: they were the ones that Sural was most interested in. Principles, and genuine artistic eyes, were an ever-rarer spectacle on Roam. He was also interested in the reaction of their most esteemed visitor from Naechis, for whose benefit the whole thing had been devised – well, that and the pretentions and ego of Hessal. The actors had removed their masks and gathered at the front of the stage to bask in their reception. If they harboured any disappointment at the not inconsiderable number of empty seats in the theatre, they were hiding it well – they can rationalise it away in all sorts of ways, of course, but Hessal knew as well as Sural did that if Curly Coltal or Proud Machyal had put on a play at an hours’ notice (rather than the several days in question here) that they would be turning away Senators at the gates hours before. And they certainly wouldn’t have cast themselves in the lead role. Actors might be respected celebrities in the sacral theatres of Analustris, but it would take more than the ill-advised efforts of an unpopular Consul to rehabilitate the reputation of actors on Roam as prostitutes and cock-takers rather than tar him with such associations. Perhaps, Sural mused as Hessal tugged away at the absurd white wig he had donned to play Inachiron, the man should be grateful that most people simply ignored the performance rather than coming to see him humiliate himself. Perhaps putting it on in the heat of the day had been a master stroke. Still, it was a diplomatic misstep that Sural knew he could not afford for his foolish friend to make. Luckily, he could feel the words coming. They always did. Hessal had started talking as the applause had died down, thanking those in attendance. “And of course, it goes without saying that this play could not have happened without the inspiration of the visit from our most esteemed guest, Onem Starling, the ambassador from the shining city of Naechis, our most awesome and closest ally.” He led a reluctant resurgence of the applause for the olive-skinned Naechisian, who waved it away with an unctuous display of humility. “The war against Inachiron could not have been won without the intervention of our eternal friends from Pricia, who share our Republican ideals and our disdain for crowns. I can only hope that Ambassador Starling appreciated the performance in the manner that it was intended, and can excuse a lowly Roaman the vanity of playing an actor.” Polite laughter rippled around the theatre at Hessal’s cute rhetorical jokette. Sural could sense his moment, and rose to his feet much faster than Hessal had while he had been playing Inachiron. He waited just long enough for Hessal to see him, and the involuntary moment of realisation of what was about to happen to cross his face – but not long enough for him to regain control of his tongue – before beginning his glowing review. “Indeed, how could our esteemed ambassador fail to be won over by such an imaginative account of history? I, for one, have never seen such creativity in a comedy, nor tragedy, let alone both.” Even from Sural’s place at the back of the theatre, he could see Hessal’s odd little lips purse as he studiously ignored the snickers that snuck around the hands of other spectators. “Furthermore,” Sural said, the reaction of his friend’s expense spurring him on, “I believe that geography, or perhaps astronomy, have found themselves subject to creativity in this most modern work, for, if Inachiron is sat on the white cliffs of Fuscry as this elaborate staging suggests, looking east across the Issycrian Sound to the lands of his forefathers, should not the sun be setting behind him?” “I fear, dear Sural, that your pedantry perhaps clouds your critical eye,” Hessal said, looking around the audience for sympathy in the face of his smiling heckler. “Or perhaps it is your prejudice? In the Issycrian dramatic tradition, prosaic details are often suborned to poetic devices such as metaphor, that the moral of the play might be better served.” “That might well be true,” conceded Sural, his toga sleeve billowing as he whipped his arm out and around to his chest. “I am often criticised for allowing prosaic details such as time, place, motive and truth to dictate my own histories. It saddens me to know that my readership – no doubt inferior in number and character to these illustrious men and lustrous women here today – are left unsure of the morals I wish to wring from history by my enslavement to facts, and memories. Indeed, fellow citizens, memories! It might shock you from my vigour, and my civic name, but I, Young Sural Pavinny Ops, am one-and-seventy years old by the Roaman reckoning, and one of the ghosts – more numerous than you might expect – wandering this great city of Roam who fought in the war depicted here today by our endlessly talented Consul Hessal Varagy, known now to most as the Inachironic War. What’s more, I was present as a boy of two-and-twenty alongside my mother’s father, Young Gigal Gibruny, the serving Consul, when Inachiron Firebrand surrendered – not on the Fuscrite sea, lamenting his crown, but at the Aumpran Pass deep in Oscumy, unapologetic and unbowed, still crowned as the Roaman legions closed in around him. How rude of me to cling onto my pride at bringing that unrepentant butcher back to Roam in chains – to retain memories of my life which I should instead allow motivated historians to reposition like the earth and the heavens, and the glory of Roam.” “My venerable friend,” Hessal shook his head wryly. From these high seats it was easier to see the thinning of the black hair of his head, Sural noted, his own white hair still as thick as the sacred briars of Vaeram. “You appear to be taking the performance rather personally, as if it were written as a personal affront to you. I can guarantee you that nothing could be further from the truth – precious as your unwavering amity is to me, I must confess that you did not cross my mind once throughout the duration of its composition.” Sural smiled through the laughter which accompanied Hessal’s neat little barb, containing the heat which would have risen to his cheeks as a younger man. The heads of the audience turned towards Sural again – if he had to guess, they were enjoying this exchange far more than Hessal’s turgid production. “I do not doubt the sincerity of your claim for a moment,” Sural assured him, holding out a palm in deference. “However, I do wonder which thoughts did in fact cross your mind during said composition, and who it was that you intended to offend – or rather who you intended to spare from offence. For another stroke of invention you have imposed upon history is to portray Inachiron as an old and tired man, ably portrayed by yourself with the assistance of a splendid wig – I note that you specify that I didn’t cross your mind during composition, but made no mention of sources of inspiration during your performance, or costuming.” “You flatter yourself, Young Sural,” Hessal insisted. “Although, I can speak only for myself. It is quite possible that my troupe have drawn from further afield, although the part does specify a horse rather than a mule.” Hessal’s quip landed well, and Sural endured the laughter at his expense. The actor who had played the horse – preposterous in itself – gave an additional bow. “As I was saying,” Sural continued once the laughter was quiet enough to talk over, “your portrayal of Inachiron as a pathetic old man should offend every thinking man in this audience, and all of Roam and the Republic – and our most welcome ambassador. I begged my grandfather to forego mercy for Inachiron, in reality a grasping tyrant only a few years older than I was, but his fate was left up to the gods, who spared him for whatever cruel reason only they can know. And Inachiron’s story did not end with applause, did it, Hessal? No, he led Naechisian troops alongside Osa Tusk, killing tens of thousands of Roamans in the godless wastes of Crylalt and Pricia – where he captured and humiliated the Patriarch of Candoam that still patronises this very theatre. So what Roaman, I ask, could sit by and watch this sympathetic portrayal – this veneration, no less – of this vicious and vengeful enemy of Roam?” He allowed a moment for his words to sink in. “Indeed, Inachiron was such a gifted killer of Roamans that the Naechisians, who found themselves overshadowed during their war against us, concluded his story by assassinating him in a disgraceful fit of jealousy while he beseeched – nay, shamed – their ruling council to match his commitment to the destruction of this unparalleled city and its peerless Republic, an action which doomed them to eventual capitulation. I am no expert on Naechisian history, nor that of Pricia, but I would find it a near insurmountable challenge to confect a more wicked stain upon a state’s conscience than the dishonourable murder of a man for challenging their virtue in the halls of governance, and would not consider a performance of a play exalting that man anything less than a most pointed provocation, even if it did feature a part for a horse.” “Perhaps, before you exert yourself too much on this warm day speaking not only for every citizen on Roam but for all men of each state, kingdom and tribal village to the ends of the world,” Hessal said with rhetorical tiredness, “we should ask the esteemed ambassador what he thinks, as he is here in possession of his own eyes, mind and mouth?” The diplomat considered the situation for a moment, then rose to his feet, the golden threads of his patterned robe gleaming dully in the sunshine like the armour of the fictional Inachiron. “May I assure Senator Sural that I was at no point offended by the performance put on for my benefit by Consul Hessal,” he spoke in throatily accented yet impeccable Roaman, “neither purposefully nor incidentally. As a veteran of wars both alongside and against the Naechisian people, I would think that Young Sural might know that we do not suffer from thin skin, nor seek out conflict where none is offered. I very much enjoyed the composition and the production of this play, and the effort of Hessal to reaffirm the common ground and common cause of our two great peoples.” He turned his dark-lined eyes up to Sural with a carefully balanced smile. “I would advise, if it is my place to do so, that Young Sural reserve his opprobrium for his not inconsiderable personal disputes and not take on the burden of those who have not sought him as their champion.” Sural pursed his lips. It was very much not this foreigner’s place, dignitary or not, to speak in such a way who had served thrice as Sentinel of the Republic. There had been a time, in his lifetime, when ambassadors to the Senate had trembled in supplication and spoken with due deference. Roam had defeated the Inachrians, yet they now polluted the culture of their conquerors here in their most sacred places; it had defeated the Naechisian, yet now let its ambassadors dare to counsel its most prestigious and experience politicians. Each of the citizens of this once great city watching the exchange sat slack-jawed as if the participants were peers sparring rather than a client negotiating with a patron. Somehow, the more powerful Roam became, the weaker its people seemed to become in turn, as if they were diluted. Softened. Well, Sural wasn’t any softer now than he had been when he had learned the ways of war under Hyberital Barbar Adesican as a teenage, and he would have his revenge on Naechis, for this and a thousand other slights and presumptions. Not now, though. Now he would allow this perfumed interloper to settle into complacency. “On the broader subject of history,” the Naechisian was continuing, as if his opinion were of value to anyone, “I believe that a breadth of interpretations is valuable, even if only from a business standpoint: sales of histories tend to receive a boost across the board when they adopt healthy competions with one another, as we can see from this fascinating debate, no matter how artificial the positions of the authors might truly be.” The theatre chuckled along with his revolting and cynical view. Sural glanced around, looking for a single red-blooded Roaman amongst these sycophantic fools, chortling in appreciation of themselves and their refined views on market forces and fraud. Perhaps the Republic was already beyond saving. He tamped down on that flicker of doubt: not while he drew breath. “You see, Sural?” Hessal called up to him, emboldened by the support of these morons. “Your fears, though well-meaning, are unfounded.” “I suppose that my true fear,” Sural said solemnly, “is that you will misinform the people of Roam of the history of their Republic. Why change what is already the greatest story of all stories in this world? The greatest historian should be invisible; Roam speaks for itself.” “A noble sentiment,” Hessal nodded, pacing across the stage thoughtfully, “yet do your histories detail the activities of every farmer, and rat, and ant, and – gods forbid! – Senator, since the foundation of this eternal city, or do you not also limit the scope of your treatises to the great men and pivotal moments of history? Do you not do so to better understand yourself and other men, and the outcomes of the decisions they might make? The details of history are less important than their significance.” “Unless the details are the significance,” Sural said immediately. “Could you understand why a man would leap from the Panthan Rock unless you knew the details of his dice game? Would you not draw the wrong lesson about men in general? That they occasionally throw themselves from the heads of world-beasts with no provocation?” The question drew a hearty laugh from across the theatre, where Scruval Qualens sat on a cushion surrounded by patient clients and petitioners, and slaves shielding them from the sun. “Leave your luck with dice out of it, Young Sural,” Scruval said, his pudgy features stubbornly resisting his attempt to smile, “or we really will be here all day.” “Do you have an opinion, Scruval?” asked Hessal, “on history, or the play?” “The play was a valiant effort to imitate the inimitable,” Scruval said, an opinion which would no doubt become the objective truth by dawn, as much due to the former Consul’s unequalled wealth and influence as to his genuine appreciation of Issycrian culture. “History, however, is a pastime for fools and old men. Those who study history are doomed to repeat it. Your great men all made their own futures.” The murmur that accompanied Scruval’s pronouncement seemed to be universally understood as the conclusion of the post-performance discussion. The spectators began to rise and gather their entourages, but Sural found Hessal’s eyes, and the two of them, for all of their sparring, wordlessly shared their concern at the ambition of Qualens, and the docile veneration of the Senators in attendance. A young slave hurried onto the stage, a publicly owned messenger by Sural’s judgement, and begged for Hessal’s attention. Young Sural descended the theatre steps, watching carefully as the Consul reacted to the mysterious news, hurrying through his thoughts and glancing at Ambassador Starling. “Is there a problem, Consul?” asked Sural above the oblivious conversations of the audience shuffling through the theatre gates out onto the city streets. Hessal blinked at Sural, evidently considering whether to bring him into his confidence, then ushered him and the ambassador up to the edge of the stage, speaking in muted tones. “I’ve just received word from Coughy Pagnal in Gaegny,” he said, referring to his co-Consul. “It appears that General Ife Tusk arrived on the Samyrtian ship as expected, but has since disappeared.” “Disappeared?” asked Starling. “Has he got lost?” The dolt, assuming that a Tusk was a fool rather than a threat. Sural was about to suggest sounding a general alarm, with an enemy of the state on the loose. “No,” frowned Hessal. “Sources at the quayside state that he was led away by an interloper. It appears that the General has been kidnapped.” Category:Chapter Category:Hessal POV Chapter Category:Sural POV Chapter